


Things Could Be Worse

by Violentlydelightful



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Heist, Matthias grows up in Ravka, Nina is more Dreg than solider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violentlydelightful/pseuds/Violentlydelightful
Summary: "Don't look so glum. Things could be worse." Nina brushed a piece of lint the shoulder of his palace guard uniform."How? What could be worse than being in love with my King's con woman fiancee?" Matthias’s look was sour, his posture stiff, but he didn't move away or tell her to stop when her fingers drifted from his shoulder to the bare skin on the back of his neck."You could be a drueskelle?" she offered. "Or we could be in a shipwreck?""Somehow, I think you could talk your way out of both of those.""Well, if you think I can talk my way out of drowning at sea, why don't you trust me to talk my way out of this?" She pulled his head down for a quick kiss, lips parting under him as his scowl melted into something much more pleasant against her."Now go," she said, breaking the kiss. "We have a King to save.""Some might say it's your fault that he needs saying.""Tch. Let's not get caught up in the details, darling."





	Things Could Be Worse

**_Matthias_ **

Sometimes it felt like Matthias had always been trying to prove himself. Really he knew that it hadn't started until his father had died, burned at the stake as a Grisha in their small border village, and his mother had taken him from the very real dangers of Fjerda into the theoretical safety of Ravka. From then on, he had been marked. A boy with no father to teach him to be a man. A tall, blonde Fjerdan in the heart of Ravka. A silent, solemn child who still prayed for Djel to find his father's soul and welcome it into the wellspring, among the riotous Ravkan Saints' festivals.

He couldn't change any of these things about himself, so he'd focused on the things that he could change. He was always big, but he became strong, skilled. He'd been too young to enlist in the First Army before the civil war, and the Grisha testers had found no trace of talent in him. But he was good with animals, and it had taken little work to get installed as a kennel boy at the Lansov palace after Nikolai's coronation. There were so few people left who had been at the palace before, after all.

So few people, in fact, that all it took was one foiled assassination for Matthias to rise from kennel boy to palace guard by the time he was 18. It was a nerve wracking promotion. He'd been comfortable with the hounds, confident in his ability to keep them in health and well-trained. But a palace guard was paid twice what the kennel boy was, and had the option to live in the barracks on the palace grounds, instead of walking to his mother's small cottage on the outskirts of town every day or sleeping with the dogs in the kennel, curled up between them for warmth.

 

"I'm so proud of you," his mother told him, beaming up at him in her musical Fjerdan. She could speak enough Ravkan to buy food at the market, but she preferred to speak her native tongue at home.

"Thank you." He sounded stiff. Hell, he felt stiff. It was the uniform. A kennel boy wore servant's white, which was unbelievably impractical, but at least the oft-bleached shirt and trousers were soft, made for moving. The dress uniform with its blue coat and gold braid would certainly spend less time on his mother's laundry lines, but it was also poorly fitted and entirely too foreign. "I'll be home in three days for my day off," he added. She already knew that, but it felt nice to say anyway.

"Good-bye, Matthias." She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

"Good-bye, Mother." He gathered the rest of his things and set off for the palace.

 

"So," the sergeant said, "you're the Fjerdan who saved the King." It had been almost a month since Matthias had wrestled a dark figure to the ground outside the palace window, but the salacious details plus Matthias's foreign origins meant it was still fertile ground for court gossip. Especially among the guards, who had little interest in who was wearing what gown at last week's social.  

Matthias snapped off what he hoped was a crisp salute. He'd spent two weeks in intensive training, learning about everything from armed combat to courtly titles. He'd much preferred the combat portions, where his strength and speed made him a natural contender. His Fjerdan accent and general unease around people made him loathe the classroom sessions practicing obscure Ravkan forms of address. He offered a silent prayer to Djel that his palace assignment would offer him more opportunities for the former than the latter.

Sergeant Petrov was a grizzled woman, one of the few to survive the First Army long enough to see her hair turn grey. Her post at the palace was a reward. Rumor had it King Nikolai had offered to let her retire in peace, with a promise of no reenlistment, but she had turned it down. So instead, she stood with her back as straight as a rifle, and instructed Matthias on his new life.

"You will check the duty roster in the guards mess hall every morning and every evening. You will keep your belongings stored neatly in your locker. You will complete your rounds professionally and alertly. Except for enforcing security requirements, you will not speak unless spoken to. Do you understand Helvar?"

Matthias had been nodding along with the review, but her sharp question made him start.

"Yes Sergeant." He saluted again.

"Good," she said sourly. "You are due at the garden post in a quarter of an hour. Set down your things and get to your post." She stared him down, or rather stared him up since he had a good 6 inches on her, waited an uncomfortable beat, and then turned on her heel and marched away.

Matthias straightened his shoulders and glanced around. The guards mess hall was empty for now. He'd shown up in the middle of the mid-morning shift, so no one was taking a break at any of the long tables that bracketed the room. He shoved open the door on the other side of the room from the one he'd entered through. It led to a long hallway of rooms, the guards barracks.

His room was sparse, just a low bed, practically a cot, and the locker against one wall with a small white basin on a table against the other. The room smelled dusty, unused. It had probably been sitting empty since the war. But now, it was gloriously his. Matthias had never had a room entirely to himself, and he allowed himself a small smile at the prospect. His clothes were stored in the locker, his bag folded and set on the shelf next to the basin.

 

It took asking for directions 3 different times to find his way to the gardens guard post. This was more than a little embarrassing, since he had been working at the palace for over a year already, but they didn't exactly want the hounds running free in the palace itself, or the precisely symmetrical gardens. When he finally arrived at the ornate door and its marble steps down into the verdant expanse, he was pleased to see Arseni Papovich was already on shift. The other man smiled as Matthias approached.

“Did you hear?” Arseni asked as Matthias settled into his post. He was only slightly older than Matthias, with the beginnings of a truly silly beard growing around the edges of his face, but he had been kind to Matthias even in his early days at the palace, and was one of the few guards who had never mocked his Fjerdan accent or stared at him with blatant distrust.

“Hear what?” Matthias adopted the wide resting position, rifle held loosely in both hands, that was as relaxed as a guard ever got, according to Sergeant Petrov. Arseni apparently hadn’t gotten that message since his rifle was slung over his shoulder by its leather strap and he was twirling a matchstick with his fingers.

“A princess arrived today!”

“Oh.” Matthias tried to straighten himself out to stand even taller. “I didn’t realize we were expecting a foreign delegation today.”

“We’re not. She’s a _Ravkan_ princess. Just got in from Kerch or something.”

“King Nikolai has a sister?”

“No, don’t be stupid. She’s a distant cousin or something. Mikhail says she’s really a duchess, but I don’t see the difference.”

“A princess is the daughter or granddaughter of a monarch. A duchess is the wife, widow, or surviving heir of a duke,” Matthias said automatically. He’d been drilled on this very harshly, very recently, and he wasn’t going to let an opportunity go past unremarked on.

“Well, it’s not going to make much difference to you or me, is it?” Arseni snapped. Matthias just shrugged.

“What’s she at the palace for?” he asked by way of apology.

“No one knows. His Majesty’s set her up with a suite in the family wing, though. Wonder who’ll get assigned that duty.” Arseni’s eyes glazed over wistfully. Matthias hoped feverently that it wasn’t him. The other boy was right; the difference between a princess and a duchess was utterly irrelevant to him, an immigrant palace guard. He didn’t want anything to do with either one.

 

**_Nina_ **

The day news reached her that the war had ended, Nina Zenik had started planning. 

Sometimes it felt like only yesterday that she had fled the growing Fold and bribed her way aboard a ship bound for Ketterdam. Sometimes it felt like a thousand years. Careful research and a keen sense of direction led her from Ketterdam's stinking ports to the Ravkan ex-pat part of the city. Luck led her from the mournful Ravkan kvas bars to the Barrel, and a boy named Kaz Brekker. And her quick wit and Grisha powers led her to the top ranks of the Dregs. She had loved her time with Inej and Jesper, and even Dirtyhands himself. But no matter what Kaz seemed to think, they couldn't spend their lives scrambling around the Barrel, hoping for the next big score, waiting for the young and hungry to knock them off the top. Eventually, they would all have to move on. She just happened to be the first one to do it.

A good plan took careful preparation, patience, and a fair amount of luck. Kaz had taught her that, although he’d balk at the luck part. 

It had started as a joke, a fun way to imagine going back home when she was homesick and talking with Inej in the Slat. What orphaned girl didn’t dream of going home to a princess’s welcome, after all? What refugee didn’t hope for a piece of the stability that only power provides? And what Dreg didn’t love the idea of waking up to a royal fortune? But the more she said it, the less implausible it sounded. 

Three months after the Fold disappeared, Nina braved the steps to Kaz’s office with a plan. The Bastard of the Barrel was sitting at his desk, which Nina was smart enough not to mention sure looked a lot like a door stacked on some old crates, with a dark pen in his gloved hands, marking numbers in the books for the Crow Club. 

“What do you want, Zenik?” he asked. 

“I want your help going back to Ravka,” she said, stepping fully into the attic space. She rarely ventured here, as Kaz preferred to meet her at the White Rose where she worked or at one of the various waffle shops in the city. Kaz sighed in what was probably annoyance and set down his pen. 

“I knew this was coming,” he rasped in his rocksalt voice. “It shouldn’t take more than a couple months for you to save up for passage out of here, and I’ll see to it that there are no questions asked at the dock. Let me know when you have the money.” He picked back up his pen and resumed marking down the figures that everyone knew he did in his head. It was a dismissal and she knew it, but Nina stood her ground. 

“I wasn’t finished.” When he looked up again, Nina flashed him an impish smile. He could pretend all he liked, but she knew he wasn’t totally immune to a pretty girl. “I want your help going back to Ravka as a lost princess.” 

“Well,” Kaz leaned back in his chair, looking impressed. “Now you’ve got my attention."

 

It had taken time to get everything arranged. There were papers to procure, bribes to pay, documents to forge. Nina spent the time working at the White Rose, lifting moods and creating confidence in the stoic merchants who came to her door by day. By night, she ran small jobs with the Dregs. On her off days, she slowly Tailored the tattoos for her House and her gang off her arms. Princesses did not have Ketterdam gang tattoos. 

When the day finally came, Inej had seen her down to the docks. Kaz had followed at an awkward distance. Jesper declined to see her off, having gotten blind drunk the night before at her going away party. Only the trusted few knew exactly why she was leaving, but everyone had been perfectly happy to toast to her success. 

While Brekker lurked at the far end of the pier, Nina and Inej shared a crushing embrace. 

"I'll buy your contract out," Nina promised, her face buried in her friend’s shoulder. "I won't leave you here." 

"And then I'll buy you waffles and bring them on the ship to Ravka before I find my family." Inej twined her fingers with Nina’s, gripping them tightly before she released and stepped smartly back. “Your Majesty.” The Suli girl bowed low, but Nina could see the dimples on her cheeks as her head ducked out of sight. They weren’t crying, but only because they knew better. You saved your tears, hoarded them away so no one else could use them. Nina stood tall and proud until Inej rose to do the same. 

Nina swept one last look of Ketterdam, its dirty rooftops and bright gardens, gaudy casinos and the somber golden hand of Ghezan rising above the city. It had been home, for a time. 

“Good-bye, Inej,” she said. “Good-bye Kaz.” She had to raise her voice to carry back to him, but he’d come all the way down to see her off, so it felt like the right thing to do. 

“May the road fall straight at your feet,” Ineje said solemnly. “Good-bye, Nina.”

“No mourners, Zenik,” Kaz shouted. He waved once, and turned to walk away. 

“No funerals,” both girls murmured together. Nina boarded the ship and turned her face towards Ravka. 

****

_ Home _ . 


End file.
